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European Union Battle Group under the command of Belgium is now ready to fulfill its missions 280714

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Monday, July 28, 2014 02:46 PM

European Union Battle Group under the command of Belgium is now ready to fulfill its missions.

The EUBG (European Union Battle Group) under the command of Belgium is now ready to fulfill its mission after six months of training. In June 2014, EUBG has demonstrated its capacity to perform its missions during a field live demonstration in Marche-en-Famenne, Belgium, attended by several Belgian and foreign authorities.

The European Union Battlegroup Concept consists of highly trained, battalion-size formations (1,500 soldiers each)1 – including all combat and service support as well as deployability and sustainability assets. These should be available within 15 days notice and sustainable for at least 30 days (extendable to 120 days by rotation).

The Battlegroup concept includes an ambition to have a decision on the launch of an operation within 5 days of approval by the Council of the Crisis Management Concept. Following a Council decision to launch an operation the aim is to have forces deployed on the ground within 10 days of the decision. The concept implies that the Battlegroups will be made up of assets and capabilities held at 5 to 10 days readiness.

The Force Commander of the EUBG 2014-2 is Colonel Philippe Boucké, current Commander of the Medium Brigade of Belgian Army. The nucleus of the deployable, multinational (F)HQ is the Belgian Medium Brigade from Leopoldsburg. It disposes of the necessary Communication and Information Systems (CIS). In support of this HQ, a Force Protection Coy (FP Coy) is provided by the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia.

The main force of this EUBG is the Infantry Task Force (ITF). Besides a staff, this ITF comprises an infantry Coy and a scout platoon on Dingo II (a Multi-Purpose Protected Vehicle) from the Medium Battalion Carabiniers Prins Boudewijn-Grenadiers (1C/1Gr) from Leopoldsburg (Belgium), a Coy on Piranha IIIC Direct Fire 90 from the Medium Battalion Bevrijding - 5e Linie from Leopoldsburg, an infantry Coy on CV90 from the 44 Pantserinfanteriebataljon from Havelte (The Netherlands) and an airmobile infantry Coy from the 12 Infanteriebataljon on Bushmaster from Schaarsbergen (The Netherlands).

The missions of the EUBG are set out in Article 43 of the Treaty on EU and the European Security Strategy. A EUBG can execute tasks in the whole spectrum of crisis management operations: humanitarian and rescue tasks, conflict prevention and peace-keeping tasks, tasks of combat forces in crisis management, including peacemaking.

Each decision for the activation of a BG has to be taken after a thorough analysis of the situation and requires the unanimous approval of the EU-members states.

The preparations for the European Union Battle Group 2014-2 have already started in 2012 and were ended 30 June 2014. Now all soldiers of the EUBG are ready and operational to give to the European Union the necessary military means to react to a crisis up to 6,000 km from Brussels on very short notice.